Using the Cabinet papers from the National Archives, former Foreign Secretary David Owen has written a new history of the pivotal British War Cabinet meetings of May 1940. Eight months into the war defeat seemed to many a certainty. With the United States and Russia over a year away from entering the conflict, Britain found herself in a perilous and lonely position. The Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax was pushing Churchill, his Prime Minister, to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Hitler, using Mussolini as a conduit. Ignored in Churchill's later account of the con--flict, the question before the War Cabinet was straightforward: should Britain fight on in the face of overwhelming odds, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives, or seek a negotiated peace? The minutes of these meetings reveal just how close Halifax came to convincing the Cabinet that negotiations should be sought.
- ISBN10 1910376892
- ISBN13 9781910376898
- Publish Date 4 December 2017 (first published 15 August 2016)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Haus Publishing
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 360
- Language English
- URL http://wiley.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=9781910376898